Abstract

Existing histories of post-war Britain offer limited perspectives on how, whyand where working-class culture became the subject that Raymond Williamsdescribed as 'a key issue in our own time'. Little of the work that has attended tothis issue has examined it beyond its anthropological sense as 'a whole way oflife'. In contrast, a concept of the 'aesthetic' is enlisted here as an apposite wayof approaching the idea of culture in its more limited sense, defuied by Williamsas 'the arts and learning - the special processes of discovery and creative effort'.This thesis locates the issue of working-class culture in the context of the postwarsettlement as an aspect of the mentalites of Welfare State Britain. It suggeststhat there was a re-imagining of the majority as part of a wider, democraticreconceptualisation of the public and cultural spheres. This idea is exploredthrough the study of a range of contemporaneous projects designed to describe,validate, reclaim, rejuvenate and indeed generate an 'authentic' working-classculture. These projects include the wartime activities of the Council for theEncouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), the post-war Folk Revival, thework of Richard Hoggart, radio producer Charles Parker, Arnold Wesker'sCentre 42 project and how creative practices pursued in post-war educationengaged with concepts of working-class culture. The aesthetic framework isenlisted also to the framing of the discourses, assumptions and idealism thatimpelled these projects. What is revealed are the historically specificconceptualisations of class, culture and politics that informed and limited thiswork, the Utopian ambition behind it and the manner in which ordinary peoplewere represented and encouraged to represent themselves.